Kalaari Capital adds three new venture partners as it readies 4th fund

Vani Kola-led venture capital firm Kalaari Capital has beefed up its leadership team as it gears up to raise a $200-million fourth India-dedicated fund this year.

The early-stage investment firm, which has backed companies like Urban Ladder, Curefit and Myntra, among others, will continue to focus on technology-focused startups going ahead, Kola told ET.

The Bengaluru-based firm recently brought in Saurav Banerjee, former co-CEO of NDTV, Sreedhar Prasad, previously the head of consumer markets and internet business advisory at KPMG India, and Devneet Bajaj, the founder of agri-tech startup MITRA, as venture partners.

The hiring comes more than a year after Kalaari saw a top-level churn in which partners Sumit Jain, Bala Srinivasa and Prashanth Aluru quit.

Kola, managing director at Kalaari, said the newly-appointed executives come in with operating experience and are a part of the firm's venture partner programme. They will primarily mentor portfolio companies and strengthen Kalaari's investment team, which will continue to focus on fintech, health-tech, agritech, digital content, deep-tech and consumer internet startups.

"Three-five years ago, it was difficult to get senior career executives to deeply engage with venture funds and startups. Today, these executives want to share their learnings and we see enthusiasm, belief and exhilaration towards scaling startups," Kola said.

Kalaari's big success was its exit from Myntra in 2014, when the fashion e-tailer was sold to Flipkart for $330 million. It also took back $100 million from a secondary sale of Snapdeal stake in 2014 to SoftBank. However, the investment went sour when the e-tailer decided to stay independent after prolonged sale talks with Flipkart fell through. At the time Kalaari held 8% in Snapdeal.

Kalaari has not raised a new fund since 2015, when it mopped up $290 million, its largest corpus ever, amid a funding frenzy in the Indian startup ecosystem. This is longer than the average two years that funds typically take before hitting the market to shore up fresh dry powder.

Founded in 2006 by technology entrepreneur Kola and former Intel top executives Vinod Dham and Kumar Shiralagi, Kalaari was launched as a $190-million India fund backed by Silicon Valley venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

At the time it was called NEA IndoUS Venture Partners, which became IndoUS Venture Partners when NEA decided to go solo in India after a few years. But the final reordering happened in 2012 with Dham leaving and the fund being renamed Kalaari.